Horner, FRANCIS,

Horner, FRANCIS, was born at Edinburgh, 29th August 1778, a merchant's son of mixed English and Scottish ancestry. From the High School he passed at fourteen to the university, and, after three years there, spent two more with a clergyman in Middlesex, there to 'unlearn' his broad native dialect. On his return (1797) he was called to the Scottish bar, from which in 1802 he removed to the English; and in 1806 entered parliament as Whig member for St Ives. He had made his mark in the House as a political economist, when, at the early age of thirty-eight, he died of consumption at Pisa, 8th February 1817. There is a statue of him by Chantrey in Westminster Abbey; but himself he left little to preserve his name, beyond some contributions to the Edinburgh Review (q.v.), of which he was one of the founders. Yet, in Lord Cockburn's words, he was 'possessed of greater public influence than any other private man, and admired, beloved, trusted, and deplored by all except the heartless or the base.' And this, he explains, was due, not to rank, wealth, office, talents, eloquence, or fascination of manner, but merely to 'sense, industry, good principles, and a good heart—to force of character.' See Horner's Memoir and Correspondence (2 vols. 1843), and Cockburn's Memorials of his Time (1856).